That's all there is, there isn't anymore
by SnappleApple11
Summary: Bucky's stroll with a children's book down memory lane intersects with the present. In which time is frozen and moves forward all at once. Post CA:CW


**Bucky's stroll down memory lane intersects with the present. In which time is frozen and moves forward all at once.**

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The strangest things can send Bucky Barnes tripping down memory lane. And while they aren't always pleasant walks, this is one of those rare times when he doesn't mind falling down the rabbit hole. In fact, he eagerly jumps in with both feet, despite knowing the landing at the end will be as hard as reality always is.

In his mind he sees a trio of dark haired girls begging him to read just one more page. He can feel the warmth of Emmy and Mary Louise curled next to him, can hear Becca proudly saying she's too grown-up for such simple books but peeking over his shoulder with curious eyes anyway.

"In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines…" He reads. "…The smallest one was Madeline."

"Uncle Bucky?"

The image shatters and Bucky is brought back to the present. Back to Clint Barton's farm where he is standing in front of a bookshelf in the living room, a hauntingly familiar book in hand, staring at a different little girl in the doorway.

"Lila? What're you doing up, kiddo? It's late."

"Can't sleep." Lila glances down where her hands twist among themselves, bashful, and asks, "Can you read to me?"

The thought flickers through his mind that daytime-Lila would insist she is too old to be read to, much like Becca used to say, but Bucky has never been one to turn down a request from a kid, so he says, "Sure thing."

For all that Lila claimed she couldn't sleep, she's out like a light by the time Bucky finishes the book. The final lines, "That's all there is, there isn't anymore," going in one ear and out the other without Lila being aware.

Bucky tucks the blankets a little higher around Lila's shoulders and retreats to the kitchen with the book. He flips through the pages randomly and traces his fingers along the illustrations without reading the words.

He thinks of the last time he read this book, or any book for that matter, to his sisters. In the days before shipping out for England he'd been caught up trying to say goodbye to everyone in different ways, from helping his Ma with cooking, to setting Stevie up on dates, to reading his sisters to sleep one last time. Looking back on it those were final days in a lot of ways, and those moments hold a rosy glow to them now as halcyon memories frozen in time, untouched and unchanging by any war.

Distantly, he hears a car pull up on the driveway and realizes Clint and the Missus must be back from their date night. Bucky stays seated at the table, fingers tracing the edges of the vine-covered buildings in the book. He's still a little lost in good memories and doesn't want to leave their warm embrace just yet, doesn't want to return to the world where time moves forward instead of standing blissfully still.

But Bucky Barnes knows better than most how time inevitably changes things and that reality always comes crashing in, fast and hard as oncoming ground at the end of a fall.

"Hey man," Clint's voice quietly calls from the doorway. Bucky shrugs his shoulder in acknowledgement. "How's the Barton brood?"

Bucky hears Laura Barton snort from the other room where she's putting away her coat. No matter how many times Clint calls them that, he doesn't think Mrs. Barton is too keen on the name. But she shakes her head at her husband fondly when he uses the term so maybe she doesn't dislike it as much as she claims.

"All quiet," Bucky reports. "Mostly just kept Lila occupied with the Legos. Cooper had some homework to finish and Nathaniel was out like a light when I put him down for bed. I don't think I've seen a baby fall asleep that fast since…" He drifts off, remembering being eight years old and handed a bundle of cloth with a newborn Becca inside, being ten and feeding Mary Louise her first solid food, being thirteen and humming Emmy to sleep when Ma and Da were both out working.

"That's all Laura," Clint beams, proud. "She got all the kids on a schedule early on. Got 'em eating on time, sleeping on time. Hell, I'm pretty sure they even pooped like clockwork. What're you reading?"

Bucky shows him the book.

"Oh, 'Madeline', yeah. Natasha got that for Lila's fourth birthday," Clint explains. "Said she wanted a cool red-head for Lila to look up to when she wasn't here."

Bucky smiles at that. "Lila asked me to read it to her."

Clint and Laura raise their eyebrows in mutual surprise. "Really? She'll let you read to her but she's too old for mom and dad to read to her now? Well, I see how it is."

"I used to read it to my sisters," Bucky admits.

That stops Clint short for a moment. "Yeah?"

He nods. For once it's surprisingly easy to verbalize the memories and let them roll off his tongue. "Becca said she was too old for it, but Mary Louise loved it and Emmy spent the whole summer of 39' wandering 'round Brooklyn in a winter coat just like Madeline's."

"Wait, that's not just a Lila thing?" Clint asks. He groans in disappointment. "Aw, c'mon. The coat thing was cute. You're telling me my little girl didn't come up with that?"

"She's not that little," Bucky says.

"Yeah, yeah, rising fifth grade and all that. She still asks me for help with homework… Sometimes," Clint insists with a fake offended look. "Ok, so I guess the coat thing is more timeless than I thought. But did your sisters wanna join the circus after they read Madeline? 'Cause Lila did," Clint questions, to Bucky's confusion.

"The circus? Why would-"

"From the books, remember? In one of the other 'Madeline' books she and that Spanish kid run off to the circus and… Aw, hell! Those probably came out after… One sec. I think we still have a copy." Clint runs out the door. Bucky hears him in the other room, shuffling through shelves and drawers. It's easy to imagine the mess he's making of the other room, and he wonders sometimes if the kids aren't tidier than their father.

"Clint doesn't like Lila getting older," Laura tells Bucky, sitting down at the table next to him, eyes fond as she runs her own fingers over the open pages of the book. She corrects herself a second later. "Actually, he doesn't like that Lila doesn't need him as much anymore. It happened when Cooper first went to junior high, and it'll happen with Nathaniel eventually too. Clint likes being needed."

"Everyone has to grow up some time," Bucky reminds her.

Laura snorts at that, and points out, "True, but when you change someone's diapers they're always going to be that little to you, no matter how big they get."

Clint returns before Bucky can reply and pushes several books under Bucky's nose, flipping through them and narrating faster than Bucky can take in the actual words on the pages. Apparently Madeline's exploits went well beyond getting her appendix out, as happened in the first book. There's a story of rescuing a drowning dog, visiting London and the White House, and running off to the circus with Pepito, the son of a Spanish ambassador, as Clint said.

Looking between the original 'Madeline' and the books of her continued adventures, Bucky is reminded again of the Final Days with his sisters, frozen in time despite the lives he knows they led afterward. And logically he knows that they had lives beyond him and the war. Knows from carefully pieced together research that they lived those lives to the fullest after he was believed dead. But just as Madeline will always be the smallest of twelve little girls in two straight lines, so will his memories of his sisters be immortalized as a trio of girls just blossoming into womanhood. Still small enough for Bucky to lift and twirl with one arm around the kitchen but just beginning to shoot up tall like sunflowers in spring.

Bucky smiles, soft and thoughtful. Time moving forward and time standing still. The hard landing of reality's pavement is, for once, softened by his memories, and he's grateful for the forgiving ground underfoot.

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" **Madeline", by Ludwig Bemelmans, was a delightful staple of my childhood. It was first published in 1939, with sequels coming in the 1950s. Including one where she befriends Pepito, the son of a Spanish ambassador, and they run away together to join the circus. Like I said. Delightful.**

 **Also, forgive the blatant age-gap with Becca Barnes. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the canon age difference between Bucky and Becca in the comics, so for this piece I made Bucky eight years older than Becca, with two additional younger sisters.**


End file.
